Rumination: Problem Solving Gone Wrong

How Rehashing the Situation Can Ruin Your Mood

Imagine the following scenario: You're at work, the day seems to be going smoothly, and you're looking forward to a relaxing evening at home. Then, with 15 minutes left your boss approaches you and informs you that you really messed something up. You apologize and try to explain what happened, but all your boss tells you is that you need to get your act together. Everyone has to deal with situations like this and it would put most people in a bad mood. You have two options in how to deal with the situation: 1) Go home and enjoy the evening, leaving work problems at work, or 2) Let the problem eat away at you all evening and think about how unfair the world can be. Try to guess which the healthier response is.

By letting the problem replay over and over in your mind you are engaging in a process which is called "rumination." Rumination refers to the tendency to repetitively think about the causes, situational factors, and consequences of one's negative emotional experience (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991). Basically, rumination means that you continuously think about the various aspects of situations that are upsetting. Think about your own tendencies. When something upsets you do you tend to mull on it, and keep going over the problem again and again? If so, then you are probably a ruminator.

What's so bad about rumination though, it's all about problem solving right? While it's true that problem solving and planning are essential to overcoming a difficult problem, people who ruminate tend to take these activities too far and for too long. They will often spend hours analyzing the situation, even after they've developed a plan for dealing with the situation. Sometimes people will ruminate about the problem so much so that they never even develop a solution to the problem. This is where rumination becomes really problematic. If the situation has you in a bad mood, rumination will keep that bad mood alive, and you will feel upset for as long as you ruminate. If you ruminate on the problem for days, chances are you'll remain upset for days.

The research is extremely consistent. People who ruminate are much more likely to develop problems with depression and anxiety, and those problems are hard to overcome for someone who fails to change ruminative thought patterns. Rumination is also connected to many different forms of self-sabotage. For example, if you ruminate on something upsetting a friend did, it's going to take longer to forgive that friend and get back to enjoying time spent with him or her. If you hold a grudge and constantly ruminate on what that friend did, you might even destroy a good friendship. Or, in the boss scenario I mentioned above, if you ruminate you are more likely to have problems with that boss and harbor negative feelings. But, if you do what you can to make improvements, and resist getting caught up in how upsetting getting reprimanded was, then you're likely to improve your situation.

So how do you overcome rumination? Well have you ever heard the phrase, "get your mind off of the problem?" The answer is simple, to overcome rumination you need to engage in some kind of activity that fully occupies your mind and prevents your thoughts from drifting back to the problem. This is easier to say than to do because when something is upsetting we want to solve the problem as quickly as possible. But sometimes we need days or longer to solve a problem and ruminating on the problem all that time will just make us miserable. So we need something to "distract" us from rumination.

There are many activities that can be used to distract from rumination, and the best one to use is one that is personal for you. For example, some good activities include reading a book, playing a game, exercising, talking to a friend (but not about the problem!), or watching a movie. Of course you are only limited by your creativity and access to different activities. Importantly, you have to enjoy the behavior for it to work. If you hate reading you will get bored and start thinking about the problem again - so reading may not be the best choice. Some of the activities that I often recommend are cross-word puzzles and sudoku puzzles. These are good because they require you to actively think about the puzzle, and not the problem. Rumination is a bad habit, so you will need to work on distracting activities on a regular basis if you want to break that habit; trying distraction once or twice is not enough!

Remember, it's good to work on problem solving and formulating a plan for improving the situation. But once you've got the problem and plan figured out, you need to do something else other than think it. Do something fun, occupy your mind with something interesting, and give yourself a chance to calm down. You'll be amazed at how much better you'll handle the problem and with practice you will feel better on a regular basis!

Certainly something I do, far too often. My current boyfriend (who happens to have a PhD in Psychology) tells me all the time that I need to stop dwelling on work. He points out that I think about it all the time. I always thought it was how I worked through things and learned what not to do next time... now I know better. I need to work on this!

I have the exact same issue as “Learning”...and it makes me unable to sleep no matter how tired I am. This affects every aspect of my life. I will try the suggestions...I’m thinking excersize is key as a distraction and hopefully also tires me out so I sleep better. Thank you for your article! I’ve been suffering from this most of my life and it’s just getting worse as I get older, so it’s nice to at least know there has been some study on this and that I am not the only one.

Write it down, in an organized manner. Re-read it instead of conjuring it all up, over and over. Only write about it in one place; no notes all over the place. You will more easily commit to a solution this way. Be pragmatic about each issue.

One way to take charge of the situation is to tell your boss that this sounds like a serious matter and you will need to make time to discuss it further first thing tomorrow morning or Monday morning. Then you can put it out of your mind until you are rested and the discussion takes place.

If someone is telling you about your shortcomings at the end of the day when you are tired and just about to wrap up, then it is likely that they are just dumping their problems on you and don't want you to have a chance to respond. Remember that bosses have bad days too and they might just want to unload their problems or responsibilities on you so they can go home with a clear mind.

Don't take it on until you have chance to discover if it really is your problem. Remember no one is perfect and trust that if there is a legitimate problem, you will be able to negotiate a resolution by reasoning it out at the next opportunity.

If your boss doesn't want to make proper time to discuss a serious matter then the matter may not be serious at all. You must remind yourself that if the problem is truely valid then you can make the appropriate adjustments once you hear all of the details.

Rumination is referenced in the June 2012 O magazine article The Nurture of Nature that says gardening is an ideal distraction. I find that the best distraction is turning my attention to a "higher" place such as time with family or my own spiritual growth. It helps to remind myself that I believe the beautiful things are the most important things in life.

I have a family member who is a chronic ruminator.
He has sabatoged dozens of relationships with friends and loved ones.
When he gets dissapointed by someones actions, he does't talk to the person directly about it. He rants and raves his frustrations to someone else about it. He rehashes the events over and over and can't let it go. He then anylizes some more and tries to pin the unwanted action on the loved one by being over critical and keeping tabs of all the things the person has done wrong.
He is sure to point out over and over that he is 100% right, then sends the person emails and or letters pointing out all their imperfections and unacceptable behavior including diagnosis of the loved ones disorders to them. Then he is devistated when the love one tells him to get some help and pulls away often ending the relationship for good. He has so many rules of what he expects from others but they don't know what the rules are. How do you deal with a person like this?

I am also the person that you're describing and only just now discovering how my habit of consistent rumination has put my current and past relationships on ice. My wife is just now learning how to let me know when and how my rumination is affecting her, so my motivation is high to have an honest introspective look at my habits.

My suggestion, which may or may not work (or may take a long time to sink in), is to simply state the facts of their ruminating habits with as much love as possible. He will probably react as expected and ignore you for some time, but if he drags along rock bottom long enough, he may dig up your perspective when he looks around and realizes how isolated he is. The criticism that'll surface first will be the statements made with love, even if they initially offended the previous versions of him.

Good luck, and I hope that you, your family member, and those around him find solace.

I ruminate by retracing my steps and trying to figure out why things fell apart in a relationship I thought would result in something more serious ... I have a powerful sense of nostalgia, so I remember the great things between us, which makes my sense of frustration more amplified and creates a desire to ruminate and ask myself what I did that brought on rejection and loneliness.

If this person's absence is a source of misery, and I have anxiety and don't look forward to a sad future of compromise or possibly solitude, rumination and nostalgia are especially compelling. Not sure what to do about that, since I'm not interested in just walking away and trying this again with someone else.

My name is Andrew and I am 40 years old. I am a person who is an extreme ruminator. I live at home with my parents and have never been in a relationship. Approximately three years ago, the inability to get upsetting events out of my mind and move on became so intense that I attempted suicide. I am glad that I was not successful in my attempt. Despite this, I am still ruminating extensively about bad events that happened in my life. I was bullied both in school and at work and I find it impossible to move on from these events. Eventhough the events in school are now in excess of twenty years old, I can still remember them like they happened yesterday. They will never go out of my mind I am sure of it. I am on medication for Depression and have had intensive psychotherapy but still find it impossible to relieve myself of this torment. I have forgiven my tormentors but find that it is impossible to forget. These ruminations pervade every aspect of my life and despite all attempts to eradicated them such as distractions, medication and psychotherapy, the feelings still remain and I am convinced they will never go away. My only hope is that I will never be driven to attempted suicide again because of my ruminations because I do not want to succeed next time..

Andrew...I have the same exact problem. I have been ruminating about a traumatic event that happened to me in college for 15 years now. I don't want to think about it anymore. I feel like screaming sometimes. It's exhausting! I've figured out exactly what happened and why. I've forgiven the people involved. I've gotten therapy for it. I've been on medication. I get brief respite from it on occasion, but it never lasts. I can't live this way anymore!

PTSD. Have you tried art therapy? There is a type of art therapy that is offered in one of my university classes that really good for past trauma. I don't have PTSD but doing the exercise once helped me get over a minor traumatic incident with my dad from when I was 8. I didn't take the class or read his book but I just did the exercise on my own. You're supposed to draw a picture of the trauma and then re-draw the picture to how you wanted the situation to end to change the memory. I might be missing a few steps but thats the jist of it

As one diagnosed with bipolar disorder, ADHD and a survivor of suicide, I definitely fall in the description. Sadly ages of therapy and meds--and compliance with both--still have me in symptoms from time to time..a traumatic upbringing didn't help. It's foreign for me to read about taking my mind off because of being smothered in guilt--it was "believed" that one learned better that way, never mind countless psych hospitalizations. Recently I get flashbacks of the past--bullied at school and now tormented at my new job(apparently co-workers dislike new ideas though it was asked from me) plus drama from divorced parents..it was no wonder that my sister took her life.

I had a therapist who was too quick to discourage ruminative thoughts. There were still fresh living problems to be solved, themes and patterns in recurring negative events which continued to happen. I'd have been much better off exploring it all deeply with her and then solving those problems together. We did some of this but it was not enough. Some terrible and preventable things continued happening to me because I had not ruminated enough about the sources of these problems.

Years earlier, I had a therapist who encouraged rumination too much. I had no history of rumination at that time, but he wanted to rip off the scabs and dig deep into my history to find explanations for my current issues. What was the point if there was no problem solving involved?

The advice I have for therapists, as a patient, is to encourage moderation and problem solving. Don't tell the patient to distract himself until you're confident that there is little left to learn from these thoughts.

I'm aware that maybe for some it's a like a trigger to be avoided altogether, but if there weren't some evolutionary advantage to withdrawing and ruminating then I think we wouldn't do it.

I've been a small ruminator all my life. Two years ago, I went through a burnout and massive heartbreak. I had nothing to look forward since I had no energy left. It led me to massive rumination. I had to do something about it as it was compromising my mental health. I felt that my thoughts had the best of me and I couldn't survive if I don't do something about it.

I declined any meds because I don't believe it suited me. I have done neurofeedback instead and it truly got my head off my ass. I discovered that my rumination was lacking perspective and my brain would let any negative thoughts in. Let me picture it this way.

My head is a room. Outside is the things ahead (perspective). The window is your filter. Flies outside are the negative thoughts.

Well, as a ruminator, I was obsessed with the flies that were in my room. I would chase them because I could not stand them. Until I realized I needed to do something with the window, repair it. Neurofeedback has let me to know about my behaviour and want to focus on. It gave me a better perspective on life. Too bad if I have a bad day, there are more to come. I still notice flies outside but I will not open the window when they are around to allow them inside.

I don't think meds is a solution. Entertain yourself is a distraction but it's not an end. Neurofeedback has done wonders for me. Sometimes I still have thoughts of me being down on myself but now, I don't believe them and they go away! When there is a will, there is a way!

I suffer anxiety disorder and also PTSD. Lately I find triggers that throw me into fear mode and once down the rabbit hole I renumerate. I have a business situation, financial considerations and have a hard time relaxing. What I have found is that I need closure, especially when something is problematic. Closure is soooo important. Without it I would go mad